News flash: According to our culture, thin is in. And, young is, too.
When we scroll through our social media newsfeeds or pretend not reading People or Star Magazine in line at the grocery store, our eyes capture image after image of youth. It’s hard to not notice the two-dimensional, digitized perfection of bright, unlined eyes, silky cellulite-free legs or taut tummies skin coming at us from every direction. We’re seen the photos of Hollywood starlets, barely out of high school, wearing grown-up hair and clothes posing for pictures that capture their shiny, smooth, youthful skin. No wrinkles. No puckers. Just smooth skin. From head to toe. Even if the photos are tweaked on someone’s laptop before posting, those images are evidence of what the message that our culture wants every woman to bathe in and believe: Only young is beautiful.
Once upon a time (not long ago), I bought into that message. When I was young, that message didn’t create any drama in my life. But, the day I turned 35, that message devastated me.
On the day I turned 35 years old, my husband and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary in glorious Grand Cayman. There I stood against the crystalline blue Caribbean waters with the man of my dreams at my side. I gazed at the beauty of my surroundings and slowly, emotionally began to disconnect from it. I could feel the beauty around me, but I could not feel it in me. I began to crumble. Right there in that perfect moment, I covered my eyes and sobbed in the middle of the street. Like an avalanche, my tears tumbled down my cheeks and a great cry rumbled from the pit of my soul, bulldozing through my tender heart and exploding out of my mouth. My anguish was apparent to the concerned tourists that strolled by. I didn’t care. I just leaned against my husband and mourned the fact that I was losing a connection to something that matter to me: youth.
So, I had the ugly cry. Snot. Loud gasps. More snot. Incoherent words. Doubled over. Tissues weren’t going to help and nothing was going to stop it. Once the ugly cry starts, you’re just in until it’s over.
Photo credit: Pinterest
Y’all know what I’m talking about, right. Oh, please tell me that you understand! It may not make rational sense, but I think you get where I’m coming from. If not, let me try to explain my mental math: 35 years old – day before = 34 years, 365 days = Youth versus 35th birthday = You ain’t no spring chicken anymore.
What a difference a day makes, right? Perhaps, your switch flipped at 29, 39, 49 or 69. I was fine at 29. Marginal at 39, but at least better prepared. But, on that day, my 35th birthday, I feared that the Hands of Time was waiting behind some mirror to start smacking me around. Remember getting birthday spanks for each year? I expected birthday slaps, expecting each strike would remove some evidence of my youth with every blow. What would I lose first?
I sobbed as I wondered, “Can I still go for IT?” “Should I still take risks or settle for easy success?” “Will the world listen to an older woman and take her seriously.“ I might have been standing in paradise on my 35th birthday, but in my heart and mind, I was in a abyss.
This photo was captured mid-air during my June 2011 skydive. I survived. Whew.
My devastation stemmed from the fear that my value was diminishing. Would I be enough as I got older? In my heart and mind, my younger years were filled with courageous moments, crazy risks and a sense that anything was possible. As a woman who loved to strap on her courage and clutched taking risks like a teddy bear, I worried that as I aged, I would lose that “let’s do this” abandon that comes with being a young woman. Deep inside, I still had hopes and dreams to achieve. I wondered if I could still build toward those dreams – and new ones – as an older version of the young-at-heart me.
I wish I could tell you that in the last seven years that I’ve settled into the aging process. (Let me save you the math, I’m 42 now). Don’t get me wrong, I love the wisdom that I’ve acquired with age. If I could go back to the younger version of myself and tell her anything, I’d smack her around a little instead. There were too many times when I knew better, but didn’t do better. I’d also tell her not to be in such a doggone hurry and enjoy life a lot more. #buytheshoes #gotoParis #letthekidseatcookiesfordinner
In the last few years, I’ve challenged myself to keep leaping for what’s next. I’ve gone skydiving, completed a survival race, gone on eight overseas missions trips, published a book, completed three very necessary rounds of professional counseling, graduated two kids from high school and so much more. I’ve got my eyes on going to trapeze school at some point in the future. I’m going to learn how to swing through the air (and hopefully, not die.) Why? Just because.
So, the days of my life may be ticking by, but I realized that the number doesn’t determine the quality of my purpose. Only I do.
And you do, too.
Q4U: If fear or money wasn’t an issue, what would you love to accomplish or try out? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Post them in the comments below – and feel free to borrow some ideas from the other comments!
Ladies, if you are at our 2015 Fabulous Conference, I hope that you are having a great time! It’s been a pleasure and honor to serve alongside my co-leader, Lauren Miller for the past five years. Thank you for being a part of something that I will remember for the rest of my life.
The following are contains the outline and some of the notes that accompany my afternoon talk called, “The Fabulous Life.” For those who want to listen and enjoy (without the pressure of taking notes), you can follow along on this page. If you didn’t attend the Fabulous Conference, I hope that these notes can be a blessing to you, no matter where you are at in life these days.
This was the opening speech at the beginning of my talk by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1910.
The first time that I heard this quote was from 2012 & 2013 Fabulous Conference special guest, Shauna Niequist. Her good friend, Dr. Brene Brown had written a book titled Daring Greatly, a book about authenticity, vulnerability and making the choice to live wholeheartedly, no matter the obstacles in our way.
There will always be a critic. You will always have critics.
Who are your critics? How are the critics stopping you from living life to it’s fullest?
You have a story.
You have passion.
You have hopes & dreams.
You have a God-Given purpose.
Speaking of God, he is the reason why the critics don’t count. And there are four reasons why:
First, God loves you more than you could ever know.
Second, there is more to God then what you understand.
Third, God has put more in you.
Lastly, God wants more for you.
You were made to live.
You were made to thrive
You were made to love.
YOU WERE MADE TO BE FABULOUS!
What would it look like to live the Fabulous life? This morning I talked about how we live joyfully, purposely, and generously.
1. A life that is FOCUSED
It doesn’t matter if you are single, married, single again. It doesn’t matter if you have kids or not, there are a lot of things that you think and care about on a daily basis. Generally, guys can think about a lot of things, but they usually think about them one at a time.
However, I believe that women have what I like to call a “one room heart.” This means that everything that we think and care about flow into each other without boundaries and sometimes all at once.
Living the fabulous and beautiful life, requires focus. What is focus: It’s when we live knowing what we are doing and why we are here.
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. – Matthew 6:33
This verse calls us to start with God. When you think about what your plans are or you think about what your purposes, start with God.
“I try to avoid looking backward or forward and try to keep looking upward.”
Who are your “go-to” girls? – if you are going to show up and if you are going to go for “it”, you need cheerleaders who are wise and for you.
A life that is BROKEN & BEAUTIFUL
Kintsukuroi – I wanted to find a picture that described the beautiful life, the Fabulous life.
from Pinterest
Pottery comes in all shapes and sizes. Pottery comes with different purposes.
Yet every piece of pottery is formed from a single piece of clay that is shaped and formed and molded.
There is nothing like a beautiful piece of flawless pottery. When it is glazed and fired and the surface gleams brightly.
But, what happens to a piece of pottery when it breaks? When something breaks, our first impulse is to discard it. When something like pottery is broken, we don’t think that it has any additional usefulness.
In Japan, Kinsukuroi is a form of pottery that was created when individuals begin taking their broken pottery to an artisan in who would put the pieces back together using a special ingredient: gold
The name of the pottery means ‘beautiful for being broken.’
You look at the cracks and see what you did and God wants you to look at the cracks to see what he’s done.
God owns it. He owns the spaces where you think you’re broken.
There will never be a time when gold won’t be valuable.
-2 Corinthians 5:4
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
Friends, the pace of our lives is exhausting. Who’s exhausted?
Thanks to technology and innovation, our complex world has created more complexity for our lives. Since we can do more, we do more. My iPhone is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. It allows me to talk, text, email, shop, schedule, purchase, play, and watch every single minute of every single hour of each day – even when I shouldn’t be doing all of those things.
Then, there’s life. Life wears us down, right? Every 24 hours, we cycle through highs, lows, smiles and struggles. We can be celebrating in one minute and feeling like our life is over in the next. It’s exhausted just navigating the emotional and relational swings we must manage throughout the day. How in the world can we stack the deck in our favor so that we don’t break down under the pressure of life. In a word: REST.
When was the last time that you completely disconnected from your life and did absolutely nothing?
Folding laundry while watching television doesn’t count.
Worrying about how you are going to get your life done doesn’t count.
Neither does paying bills on your iPad in bed.
When was the last time you rested? Rest happens when we stop working at our jobs AND at home. Rest happens when we choose to disengage our minds from thinking about those tasks and life’s other pressures. Let me ask you again: When was the last time you rested?
I’m not good at resting. (My friends are laughing at me right now.)
I think some of you are bad at it, too. We don’t want to be bad at resting, but we are – for good reason, right? We are always taking care of someone or something. It doesn’t matter if you are single, married or single again, our feminine mindset drives us to constantly nurture or fix our environments. It doesn’t matter if you are motivating your sales staff, raising children, cleaning the house, listening to friends on the phone or growing our garden, most of us are ALWAYS doing something. Good things.
But, here’s a truth: At some point, we’ve got to press the “power down” button and voluntarily – even forcefully remove ourselves from the worship of Busyness. We must take time to sit our down and rest.
God Blesses Rest
I love that God blesses rest in Genesis 2:2-3:
“On the seventh day God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all His work of creation.”
Here is how God models rest for us:
1. God prioritized what He needed to do.
2. When God’s work was finished, He stopped and didn’t add anything else to it.
3. He didn’t let the pressures of future tasks get in the way of rest.
The Jewish word we use to describe the kind of rest God models for us is called a Sabbath. During Sabbath rest, we cease our labor. So, if you are employed, you’ll need to establish your Sabbath on your day off. If you work seven days a week, you need to rethink your job. Why would I make such a bold statement?
This is why: When we rest, we turn the care and custody of our lives into God’s hands for Him to protect and provide for us while we rejuvenate.
I understand that there may be certain periods of life when we work more than usual, but this should not be your constant rhythm of life. For the months that I was writing this book, I missed out on regular rest. When the book is over, reinstituting this discipline is my first task. (Even before catching up on my laundry!)
Friday is my day of rest. I love Fridays! I work about six days a week, except on Friday. Thursday nights are exciting for me because I know Friday’s up next. My toughest challenge is shutting down my brain from thinking about work. So, I read fiction books and eat grocery store sushi in bed. I take long walks and practice deep breathing. I sit and pray. Sometime, I just wander around my house in the quiet.
No matter the stress and pressure of my life, by the end of each Sabbath rest, my soul is refreshed and I feel alive again. I’m much more equipped to handle those pressures and bear up under those stresses after choosing to rest. Life happens, so we must rest in order to deal with life. I want you to be able to deal with life from a place of strength, rather than a place of just-barely-hanging-in-there. The choice is up to you.
When will YOU take the time to rest?
Practical Tips:
1. When you choose your day of rest, keep it as consistent as possible. Be vigilant until this becomes a part of your regular rhythm of life.
2. Do not schedule anything on that day! It’s not rest if you’ve got a schedule to follow. Just be.
3. What about mothers with children or women caring for elderly loved ones? God still wants you to experience rest! This means that you might need to get creative with solutions such as trading babysitting or even paying for respite care. Trust me, any expense or effort you put into arranging for your Sabbath rest will have an incredible ROI (return on investment)!
QUESTIONS FOR YOU? If you had a free day with nothing to do, how would you rest? Would it be easy or difficult for you to wind down and just “be”? How would you know that you actually rested?
One day, I took my then five-year-old daughter, Abbie, shopping with me. I needed to check out some new clothes and didn’t want to pay for a sitter. My youngest little girl has a kind and loving heart, so I can always count on her to have sweet and supportive things to say. After we arrived at the store, it took a few minutes for me to choose some clothes to try on in the dressing room. As we went entered the hallway of the dressing room area, I realized that there wasn’t a place for Abbie to sit. So, I brought her inside of my small dressing room and settled her on the little perch in the corner of the room.
Promising to be quick, I handed Abbie some crackers and turned to disrobe. Since the dressing room can be a judgment room, I mentally prepared to get half-naked and try on clothes that may or may not fit. What if it doesn’t fit? I should have worked out more. I wish that I was 10 pounds thinner! My little cherub munched on her crackers as I slipped out of my coat and turned to remove my top. Then, her munching stopped and her little voice piped up: “It’s OK, Mommy. I won’t laugh.”
So much for thinking that I had kept my insecurities to myself!
I was wrong. Somewhere along the line, my five-year old daughter picked up on my frustration over my size, shape or style, otherwise known as my “ugly struggle with beauty”.
“Why don’t I ever look good in anything?” “My feet are SO big! Goodness, someone could use these for a boat!” “Look at these hips! Nothing ever fits right over these hips!”
I never wanted Abbie or my other daughters to sense my discomfort with my body. Yet, I had passed my negative thinking and feelings about my size and shape onto my daughters.
In October 2013, I surveyed over 500 women about the topic of beauty and how beauty has impacted their lives. Many women reflected on how their mothers’ ugly struggle with beauty was passed along to them. Here’s one woman’s story:
My mother is a beautiful woman by anyone’s standards, but she does not see it that way. To this day, she works to support her beauty habits. She’s had breast augmentation, countless peels and laser resurfacing and practically lives at the salon. This was my model. I remember my mother telling me that I was beautiful, but I also remember her worrying about what I was eating, and how my hair looked and what other people would think about me. I scrutinize every imperfection on my face. I have long, full hair that other women compliment me on, but it’s fake. I shop a lot. I constantly size myself up against other women. It is honestly exhausting at times.
Clearly, her mother never intended for her daughter to inherit her ugly struggle with beauty, but our words and actions influence our daughters more than we realize.
Protecting our daughters from our ugly struggle…
Moms, we never want for our daughters is to experience the same sadness and frustration that we encounter in the mirror, right? If our daughters express a beauty-related struggle, we’re quick to go out an buy something to help. We make sure they have acne-free skin, pay for nose jobs or by them stylish clothes. Yet, trying to address their physical struggle doesn’t matter if our girls are also carrying around OUR beauty-related pain in their hearts and minds.
So, what do we do to influence our daughters away from our ugly struggle?The best way to keep our daughters from inheriting our ugly struggle with beauty is for us to win OUR ugly struggle with beauty!
There are three things that we need to do in order to win our ugly struggle or reduce our struggle’s impact on our daughter’s lives:
1. Understand your “beauty narrative” – What’s your beauty story? Talking about beauty is more than just talking about how we look, it’s about understand it’s impact on how we think and live. Are there nicknames or painful memories that you’ve carried around since childhood that whisper back to you each time you look in the mirror? When we don’t acknowledge the things that happened to us, we carry them around and give them the power to influence our thinking, feelings. 2. Re-Think Your Body – Your relationship with beauty begins in your mind. What you think drives how you feel and behave. If you struggle with you’re a certain body part or facial feature, then a practical tip would be re-frame how you think about that feature. How does that body part bless your life? What purpose does that body part serve in helping you love and care for the people around you? I struggle with the gap between my front teeth. Yet, my mouth affords me the opportunities to speak with women and encourage them. I know that my voice and smile would not be as effective without my two front teeth. So, those teeth are a blessing because they allow me to encourage others. 3. BE Beautiful! Beauty isn’t about our size, shape or style. Instead, we are beautiful when we recognize ourselves as creations of an Almighty God. We are not doomed because our hips may be too wide or our skin isn’t youthful or smooth. We are beautiful because God created us. Period.
When our daughters see us smiling at ourselves in the mirror, our daughters will remember and mimic that behavior. When our daughters overhear blessing our bodies, in spite of what our culture says about beauty, then our daughters will learn to bless their bodies in spite of what culture says about their beauty.
While we can’t protect our daughters from their own ugly struggle with beauty, we can protect them from inheriting ours.
QUESTION: How did your mom influence your opinions about beauty? What beliefs or attitudes have you carried from childhood into your adult years? Share your story by leaving a comment below.
Friends, thanks for stopping by today! If you think that this post could bless your friends, I’d love for you to share it!
How many of us are still carrying around painful words spoken to us during our childhood or teenage years?
“Your nose looks like Captain Hook!”
“You’re so dark that we’d lose you if the lights were off.”
“My dog is cuter than you.”
Ouch. No only do those phrases hurt our eyes, but if those words were ever directed at you, those horrible words hurt your heart, too.
While we can’t undo what we heard as kids, we can be proactive about who we allow access to the most important part of us: our heart. The question is: How do we protect our hearts?
Do you realize that your heart is your most valuable possession? This is why God says that we must guard our hearts because the rest of our life depends on the condition of our hearts!
We’re switching things up today! This 2-minute video clip was from our February 2015 LivingItOut video podcast titled “Strengthening Your Relationships.” In this clip, I’m discussion how to “guard our hearts” when it comes to relationships with others.
Q4U #1: What are some of the things you heard about your size, shape or style as a kid that still stick in your memories today? How did those words impact your life?
Q4U #2 – Think about some of your most difficult relationships. Where are people crossing the line in your life? What are some sensors or triggers that you need to install in order to protect your heart? (How do you need to restructure how/when you interact with them?
Thanks for joining me for the Beautiful Devotional Day #3! Please share this post with others and invite them to subscribe to Barbroose.com for more encouragement and inspiration for the remaining days of this devotional and in the weeks to come!
Barb Roose is a speaker and author who is passionate about teaching women to live beautifully strong and courageous so that they experience God’s great adventure of faith and purpose for their lives.
Check out Barb’s new releases, Stronger Than Stress: 10 Spiritual Practices to Win the Battle of Overwhelm book and Stronger Than Stress: 10 Spiritual Practices to Win the Battle of Overwhelms Bible study.
Barb lives in NW Ohio and is proud mother of three adult kids. Whenever possible, Barb prefers to eat dessert first. Visit Barb’s online home at barbroose.com.
